Stewards of the Heartlands

The Importance of 'Place' - Glenariffe Station and High Country Sheep Farming in the Southern Alps of New Zealand

Kent Deitemeyer

Photographing Glenariffe Station is firstly all about capturing a sense of 'place' where location, history, legacies, community and family resound together with a beautiful story. Some 40 kilometres from the nearest highway lies Glenariffe Station, a New Zealand high country sheep farm in the Southern Alps of the South Island. Glenariffe Station is a 100-year old family farm owned by Mark Ensor and BJ (Belinda) Bull located in the far reaches of the isolated Rakaia River valley in the vastness of a wide valley surrounded by mountain peaks. Such isolation belies the close knit farming community of the families in Rakaia River gorge that have helped each other for over a century since the pioneering days of colonial New Zealand to today's iconic Kiwi farmily farm. A beautiful story to be told as the months and years go by of family farming in the Southern Alps. This aerial view was made from a flight over the Southern Alps points the location of Glenariffe Station tucked up on the river terrace in the Upper Rakaia River Valley. The braided river valley in the foreground is the Wilberforce River and to the left is Lake Coleridge. In the far distance on the left is the Canterbury Plains and the Pacific Ocean. Just out of the image on the far right would be Mt Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain where Sir Edmund Hillary 'warmed-up' on its icy glaciers before conquering Mt Everest.

Glenariffe Station - A photography study of place, farming, legacy and community.

As an introduction to Glenariffe Station and Mark and BJ's stories, we first develop the notion of "place" as their location, legacy and history are a key part to the story we will be telling.